Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

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Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

Northwestern University and Evanston's Only Daily News Source Since 1881

The Daily Northwestern

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Baseball: The man behind the mask-Chad Noble

The Noble family was packed and headed to the airport for their annual spring ski trip to Beaver Creek, Colo. But Chad Noble didn’t want to leave home.

His baseball coaches at Rockwall High School warned that if he left for Spring Break and missed the team’s games and practices, he would be benched for two weeks. Chad begged his parents, Dave and Leslie, to let him stay.

Would Chad Noble be Northwestern’s starting catcher and a Major League Baseball draft prospect if his parents had decided to take the trip?

Chad wasn’t sure then and he isn’t sure now. The high school freshman worried that if he missed three weeks of games, a different catcher would take his spot behind the plate.

“I have to play,” Chad insisted, before threatening to run away from home if his parents didn’t let him stay. The family of five-Chad, his parents and his two younger brothers, John and Nick-put the matter to a vote.

The Nobles canceled the trip and headed back to Rockwall, and Chad promptly solidified his role as the team’s starting backstop.

As far as Chad is concerned, his family sacrificed their last ski trip not just for three high school games. They did it for his entire baseball career.

MOREL BEGINNINGS

Every spring for 35 years, Dave Noble braved the Iowa wilderness to hunt morel mushrooms with his father. The trips weren’t as much about collecting the spongy mushrooms as they were about father-son bonding.

When Dave started his own family with his wife Leslie, he wanted to continue the tradition he and his dad began. The only problem was the hot, arid Texas climate, which isn’t conducive to morel mushroom growth. So Dave found a different subject he and Chad could bond over: butterflies.

Every Saturday morning when Chad was 7 years old, he and his dad packed drinks and peanut butter and jelly sandwiches into their Chevy Suburban and set off from Plano, Texas-where they lived at the time-to a magical place Dave dubbed “Giant Land,” where the Giant Swallowtail, the biggest butterfly in the state, dwells. When Dave steered the Suburban down a gravel road just north of Plano, he popped in an Elvis tape and told Chad he could unbuckle his seat belt; they were almost there. Once they reached Giant Land, the duo entered the butterfly realm dressed in camouflage, enormous nets in hand.

When Chad caught a glimpse of the Giant Swallowtail’s gold and black pattern flitting through the air, he staked it out and refused to take his eyes off it until he could track it closer to his 7-year-old level and swoop it into his net.

Chad still has 32 species of Texas butterfly tacked on display boards in his closet at home. They used to hang on the wall, Dave said, but Chad wanted to take them down when he started high school.

Chad soon advanced from his humble butterfly beginnings to bigger targets, like doves and hogs. Dave took Chad and his brothers dove hunting until middle or high school, when the boys started spending more of their weekends with friends or playing sports. But the hunt is not quite out of the Chad. About six months ago, Chad went hunting with his friend Travis Moseley and shot what Travis called “a pretty good hog,” before saying that any hog is good hog. Chad’s weighed in at about 300 pounds, more than 100 pounds heavier than he is.

PLAY BALL

Dave Noble’s grandfather ran track for Iowa. Dave Noble’s father played football for Iowa. Dave Noble swam for Iowa. When Dave and Leslie had three boys, it was only a matter of time before they took to sports. Chad ultimately chose baseball, while his brother John preferred football. John is now an offensive lineman for North Texas. The youngest brother Nick plays football and basketball for Rockwall.

The brothers’ athleticism shined through early, when they were younger and lived in Plano. Dave would throw a Koosh ball-a toy with a rubber core and flimsy rubber spikes-all over the living room, expecting his sons to leap and dive to catch it.

Chad took his Koosh-catching skills right from the living room to the baseball diamond. Randy Talley, who coached Chad through three years of high school before retiring in 2005, said Chad was already an advanced, competitive player when he started playing at Rockwall. But Talley said Noble’s most notable quality was his laid-back personality, which lifted up everybody around him and made him an even more valuable player.

Travis, who pitched for the Yellowjackets and later at Arkansas, said Chad had a knack for calming down pitchers even in high-stress situations. He would walk out to the mound and say, “Hey man, let’s do it. What’s the worst that could happen?”

But Chad’s inspirational force isn’t felt only on the field. Leslie Kieschnick, Chad’s high school economics teacher and mother of one of his Rockwall teammates, said Chad just makes people smile.

“You know how when you just say a person’s name, they just kind of giggle?” Kieschnick asked. “That’s kind of how Chad is. He just brings happy thoughts, because he’s just a crazy kind of guy.”

BLESSING IN DISGUISE

Chad was a junior in high school and in the middle of a standout season when he received shocking news: His father had tongue cancer. It started out as small leukoplakia on his tongue and rapidly worsened. Dave needed major surgery to remove the cancer.

That day, April 18, 2005, Chad and his brothers left school to be with their father throughout the surgery that removed half of his tongue.

Between recuperating from his surgery and going through chemotherapy and radiation treatment, Dave made it to Rockwall’s state championship game, which the Yellowjackets lost.

Talley said it was impossible to tell Chad was going through a tough time by the way he remained steady during the process and was able to focus on baseball despite his father’s ailment.

Happily, the surgery and treatments were successful, and Dave is now five years and one month cancer-free. Chad said he never had a negative thought. In fact, he is convinced his dad’s cancer was a blessing in disguise. Before Dave was diagnosed with tongue cancer, doctors told him he was at high risk of a heart attack due to his weight. Dave’s father and grandfather both had heart complications and died at an early age-48 and 45 years old, respectively. When he had cancer, Dave’s weight dropped to a healthier range. Now 54, Dave realized he might be able to achieve his dream of being the first living grandfather in three generations.

LADY LUCK

Chad was never a ladies’ man, but his skills with girls still made Travis envious.

“He would roll up in some grungy, old, crappy sweatpants and a T-shirt and an old sweaty baseball cap after working out, and he would end up dating some of the hottest girls you’ve ever seen,” Travis said. “It cut me up.”

But Chad never clicked just right with any of the girls he dated, so he never committed to longterm relationships in high school, Travis said. That was until one fateful day on Lake Ray Hubbard, a couple of weeks after Chad graduated from Rockwall in 2006.

Chad was supposed to meet two friends to go boating on the lake. Patrick, whose boat the friends were using, wouldn’t leave the dock without the two girls he had invited along. The girls were late and Chad was frustrated-after all, he could go inside and play video games instead of waiting for a couple of girls to show up. Chad said he would wait five minutes before leaving. Five minutes passed. Right as Chad started walking off the dock, he saw three girls headed toward the boat.

One of those girls, Katherine Neal, wasn’t originally planning to go out on the lake, but her friends convinced her, despite still being upset over a recent break-up. When Katherine saw Chad at the lake, she cheered up a little.

“He looked really cute,” Katherine said. “He was wearing a sleeveless shirt, and he’s always had great arms since he’s a baseball player.”

Chad and Katherin
e spent the whole day talking on the front of the boat. At one point, Chad asked Katherine if she was still dating her ex-boyfriend. When she said no, Chad turned around and whispered to his friends, “What an idiot!” The two spent the rest of the summer together and have been dating ever since.

Katherine graduated from Rockwall a year after Chad and decided to go to DePaul to be near Chad. The two prefer to lie around watching movies when they’re together, to take a break from their busy schedules and enjoy each other’s company. Katherine said they also go out to dinner on occasion, their favorite restaurant being Chili’s. Chad said he rarely eats anything unhealthy, but Katherine let out a little secret: They like to splurge on McFlurries and Cold Stone every once in a while. Katherine said Chad’s ultimate weakness, though, is macaroni and cheese.

While both said marriage could be in the cards, they want to focus on their careers before tying the knot. As for fulfilling Dave’s dream of being the first grandfather in three generations, Chad said his dad might have to wait a while.

SCHOOL FIRST, PLAY LATER

A couple of weeks before last year’s Major League Baseball draft, Chad’s phone rang. It was the New York Mets.

A week prior, the ballclub called to ask about Chad’s signability. They said they would be in further contact. This time, they had an offer for the then-junior catcher: $125,000 plus finances to complete his education, if he returned to get his degree after a professional baseball career.

Chad’s jaw dropped. He hadn’t even considered the idea that he would be drafted, especially after his junior year. He told the Mets representative he would need to think about the proposition and would get back to them with an answer. Chad sought advice from everybody he could think of, from his parents to NU coach Paul Stevens to former teammate Jake Goebbert, a good friend of Chad’s who was drafted last year by the Houston Astros.

Although he asked people whose opinions he valued, Chad knew the decision came down to him. He remembered he had always planned on using his athletic talent to get into a school that was a slight reach for him academically, like NU. He didn’t plan it that way so he could attend school for three years and leave. He did it so he could get a degree from Northwestern.

So Chad chose to stay in Evanston. On June 18, he will graduate with a degree in economics. His parents couldn’t be prouder. The whole Noble family will be flying in for graduation-they wouldn’t miss it for the world. As Dave said, “This is a big deal, this purple degree.”

When Chad was 9 years old, Dave started taking him and John, and later Nick, up to Iowa City, Iowa for the Hawkeyes’ Homecoming games. It was then that Chad was introduced to the Big Ten. With his mom attending Indiana and a legacy of men on his dad’s side going to Iowa, Chad is carrying on the conference name.

IN THE HUNT

Travis said it might have been a little emasculating for Chad to go from hunting hogs to hunting butterflies. But Chad did it the other way around. And as he moves on, his competitive nature keeps maturing-now he’s in the hunt for bigger and better prizes.

Around the same time Chad was talking with the Mets last year, he received written communication from other clubs telling him if he could raise his batting average from last year’s .297 to over .320 or .330 this season, he would significantly improve his draft stock.

Heading into the final conference series against Michigan State, Chad’s batting average hovers at .359. He has also been added to the watch list for the Johnny Bench Award, given to the nation’s top catcher. Noble has established himself as one of the country’s best players behind the dish, throwing out 45 percent of attempted base stealers.
Stevens said he has seen “15 or 20 of those guys around” scouting the senior catcher.

As Travis said, Chad has everything going for him: the smarts, the looks, the family support, the baseball skills. Now, he might get to sign his name on the dotted line for a hefty sum to start his professional baseball career.

Good thing he didn’t go on that ski trip.

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Baseball: The man behind the mask-Chad Noble